The Cobalt does have a dip stick, however. Did you mean the Cruze? The Cobalt was last produced in 2010. The Cruze also has a dip stick.
Ooops, I forgot about the Cruze, but neither it nor the Cobalt appear to have an oil level sensor.
I wanted to check the oil in one of our Savanna vans the other day. 5 x’s on the dipstick, looked at the manual, no help, asked our mechanic, scratches head and I don’t know. put 1/2 quart 2 x’s gone, Why make it so confusing?
So you will take it to the dealer.
Barkydog The “X’s” used to be on nearly every dipstick. Their purpose was to hold a slightly thicker film of oil between the full and add marks that is easier to see. They were probably determined to be non essential so were eliminated.
One of my cars has little holes drilled in the dipstick so you can see the clean oil better. Can’t recall which one it is though. I usually change oil before I need oil.
Some companies go cheap on dipsticks. The toyota yaris has a yellow plastic dipstick thats damn near impossible to read, especially when the oil is clean. The 1950 cadillac has a solid metal dipstick with crosshatching thats very easy to see.
My Accord has cross hatching, but it is still difficult to read immediately after an oil change.
My Mazda has Crosshatching, lines above and bellow it and also holes. There is a TSB that states the oil should be in the hatch areas not to the lines. Very complicated for a dipstick.
I have seen several old farm tractors that had no dipsticks. There were petcocks threaded in the crankcase at the MAX and MIN levels. If opening the MIN petcock resulted in oil leaking out no oil was needed. If no oil leaked out of the MIN it was closed and the MAX opened and oil was added to the engine until it spilled out of the MAX. Some of those old engines had an oil pressure gauge mounted in the crankcase that was similar to a pencil style tire pressure gauge. When the engine was running the plunger extended out indicating good pressure.
Re luddite tendencies, I don’t oppose technological innovation totally. I do prefer to allow technological innovation to be thoroughly proven before investing in it and even then having a redundant fall back on the long proven systems when possible. I learned to drive in a GMC pickup that had a hand crank behind the seat as a backup for the electric starter.
My Dad used to have an antique car (1911 Regal) that had an oil level indicator. It was a rod stuck in a cork ball and the rod came out a hole in the top of the crankcase.
I don’t have a problem with an electronic low oil light and or chime as long as there is a dipstick for confirmation. From my experience a low oil pressure idiot light illuminates a few seconds after a bearing starts knocking!
How about this for frustration . . .
You open the hood to check your oil level
You reach for what you think is the engine oil level dipstick, only to discover it’s just a cap over the dipstick tube
Because to check the engine oil level, you A use the cluster to tell you when it’s okay, or B use the “shop tool” which is a special dipstick with markings on it
This scenario is/was around on some vehicles I’ve worked on